John Biggs

Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here. Email him directly at john@techcrunch.com.

Disclosures:
John is an unpaid advisor to Riffle, a social books platform.
John is CEO of Freeport Mobile, Inc. Bre Pettis, formerly of Makerbot, is an investor.

Latest from John Biggs

WARNING: Do not click on the movie above. You will be subjected to a tossle-headed Chinese man brushing his teeth for 2 minutes. This is not a drill.
Exclusive Video: Hasbro Tooth Tunes MP3 Toothbrush [Gizmodo] Read More

you won’t get a Wii, but that doesn’t matter. At least you’ll have tried.
Various scans of the 2006 version of the annual huge holiday catalog for Toys R Us known as “The Big Book” have surfaced online, with one detail that’s attracting the most attention — the book has a page devoted to the Wii that says pre-orders are available. The book, set to… Read More

Point and shoots can be pretty dicey. If they’re good, they’re adequate. If they’re bad, they’re vile. DigitalCamera-HQ rounds up the worst including the “6-megapixel” Option E10 which was just an interpolated 2-megapixel and the Polaroid PDC-5080 which is an even worse pack of lies.
Watch for our upcoming camera holiday round ups, but until then, suck on… Read More

FotoNation has created a face tracking system for cellphones that keeps your mug in the frame with a minimum of fuss. It works with Symbian Series 60 and Windows Mobile 5.0, meaning that the software fits onto most smaller platforms. It aids in focus, exposure, and color balance and can also crop out faces in scenes automatically. It’s not out in the wild yet, but it’s available… Read More

Dave over at MobilityToday got to play with the HTC Artemis, a GPS-enabled smartphone with FM radio and TomTom Navigator 6
. It even has a wee squirrel ball, which is fairly cool, and runs Windows Mobile as opposed to Windows Smartphone Edition which makes me throw up a little when I use it.
HTC Artemis First Look [MobilityToday] Read More

to rip your DVDs and convert video for the video iPod, we received a bit of info from our spies in deepest Russia who suggest trying their program, Movavi, to automatically rip and convert video to your iPod. It works with Windows and is considerably easier than waiting around four hours while HandBrake or other programs work their magic.
Because the Movavi folks like you all so much… Read More

The Zune mystery thickens. Our CrunchGear rumorists have discovered that when you share a song via Wi-Fi using Zune’s three day/three play system AND the other party purchases the song later in the iZunes Music Store (IZMS), you get a credit that you can later trade in for music and media. Very clever, Microsoft, very clever.
Clearly the goal here is to create a bit of viral marketing… Read More

It was only a matter of time before Bose slapped their logo on a pair of in-ear headphones. While I like my QC3s, I’d really have to try these things before I sprung for them. Priced at $99.95, they’re tipped in soft, murky silicone and offer Bose sound in a tiny package. Not amazing, but worth looking into.
Product Page [Bose] Read More

Apple just sprung a secret upgrade on the world in the form of MacBook Pro notebooks with Core 2 Duo processors. The two notebooks affected are the 15- and 17-inch models and offer up to 39 percent boost in performance, all told.
Every MacBook Pro features the new Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB of shared L2 cache, which is up to 39 percent faster than the previous 2.16 GHz MacBook Pro… Read More

Zetabytes? Pounds, baby, pounds! The Zetabyte storage device is actually a networked storage system that backs up to Amazon’s S3 networked file system. It cans store up to 690GB for, and this is the kicker, $299 a month. The cheapest plan is $49 a month for 30GB. The real key is that all of the data stored on the zBox, as it’s called, goes straight to Amazon’s S3 service. Read More

As a confirmed horological nut, I was fairly skeptical when I heard about the Fossil Abacus Bluetooth watch, the MobileWear. It is a watch that tells you when someone is calling your cellphone. It notifies you by vibrating and showing the name of the caller – if they’re in your address book – right on the watch face. You can also mute and hang-up on callers with the… Read More

See, now this is weird. I just came back from South Korea and did not see this phone anywhere. Plus, it doesn’t look anything like the Samsung trade dress, with the gimpy lettering and bulk. I know the i600 is pretty beefy, but it looks nothing like this monster. Samsung is also pushing into WiMax, or, as they call it, WiBro, so this just looks weird.
It appears to run Windows Mobile and… Read More

Apparently the PS3 comes with cinder blocks, because how else can you explain what they could be hiding deep inside that cardboard case. As PS3Land writes:
From the looks of the box, you may need to bring a friend to help carry your PS3 home!
I wouldn’t let my friends touch my new PS3. They’ll steal my console like they stole my bike.
Edit: Clearly Biggs has a mammoth head if it is… Read More

This is really the only cool footage I grabbed this trip – most of the time we were in a conference room, van, or an off-limits area *SNIFF* – but it was fun to wander through Samsung’s techno wonderland/store. That strange glowing table halfway through is very Minority Report. You move the window over a character on the screen and you get a close up of that character in action. Read More

carrier will be launching it in the next few weeks, maybe the one that starts with T and rhymes with “noble.” It’s a cool Windows Mobile 5.0 – gah! – smartphone with a great form factor, so you all will be first to know when it hits the stores.
I’m also going to write a bit on the void between Eastern tech and Western tech. I can honestly say that the… Read More

Oh, South Korea, why do you taunt us so. Here are some highlights from today’s trip to Samsung HQ and the tech mart in downtown Seoul. Not much to say except that I want a CE-looking Media Center PC mit der blinkenlights running MCE for my own home like the Samsung Magic Station, above.
I’m late, said the White Rabbit. The YP-W3L MP3-player pocket watch.
Another MCE monster… Read More

is another Ultra model – the D900 is an extremely slim slider with 3-megapixel camera and a unique UI designed in conjunction with Adobe. The Samsung folks didn’t mention a timeframe, but it should be hitting our shores very soon for about $350-400. Read More

This is Jonathan Glazer’s Sony Bravia ad, a paint spectacular using massive quantities of paint and 250 to mix and film. The paint was completely water soluble and apparently edible and I have absolutely no idea what is going on except that the denizens of that Soviet-style block must be pissed.
Video Page [Sony] Read More